A Hard Rain
Looking to Bob Kaufman
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3219641 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Aldon Lynn Nielsen (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2002 |
| Volume | 25 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 135-145 |
| Publication date | 2002-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Callaloo (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0161-2492 • E-ISSN: 1080-6512 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/cal.2002.0038 |
| OpenAlex | W2082000465 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 4 |
In the world of Bob Kaufman's poetics, Federico García Lorca and Crispus Attucks stand together in "The Ancient Rain." Kaufman asserts a kinship with Attucks, writing "Crispus Attucks is my son, my father, my brother, I am Black" (Ancient 80). Kaufman here fathers his own father. Further, he envisions an afterworld where "The Negroes have gone home with Lorca" (79). The music of "The Ancient Rain" is "purely American, not European" (77), and yet that pure product of the America that is shared by Kaufman with another poet whose roots are in the Caribbean, William Carlos Williams, that purely American ancient rain "illuminates Lorca, the mystery of America" shines in Lorca's eyes (79). It is Ben Belitt's English, however, that Kaufman embeds in his poem as the representation of the "voice out of the whirlwind": [End Page 135]
Art · Art history · Brother · Kinship · Literature · Poetics · Poetry · Politics · Sociology · American Literature and Humor Studies · Anthropology · Contemporary Literature and Criticism · History · Law · Postmodernism in Literature and Education
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,2 |
| Citation span | 2011 - 2014 (4) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |